“And now back to your regularly scheduled blogging about all things pathetic”

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For those who have been reading my blog for some time, you know that I have a very strange sense of humor, and I’m sure you’re wondering if you’ll ever see that again.

Well…you’ll be pleased to know that my weird and wacky sense of humor has not gone away, it just took a break for a short time as I used this area of my life as a sounding board of sorts.

Thank you for being patient as I vented some feelings and frustrations in my recent posts. You’ve all been very supportive, and I appreciate you all…even though I still think you’re all cattle and followers of too many wrong and horrible things, but that’s a rant for another post at a later date. As for today, I’d like to get back to sharing stories about all things pathetic.

Along those lines, I feel that it’s of extremely high importance that I share with you a couple of things that I absolutely refuse to do.

First, I absolutely refuse to pander to the masses.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any period of time, you should know by now that just because the rest of the herd are all heading in the direction of the slaughter house, it does NOT mean that I have to follow them.

Second, I absolutely refuse to stand in line for anything other than a movie. However, IF I choose to stand in line for a movie, it better be the best movie ever made or there will be hell to pay. How will hell be paid?? I haven’t quite figured that out yet, but just know that eventually there will be hell to pay.

Third, and most importantly, I absolutely refuse to suck-up to my boss.

I mention this only because, today, I got a glimpse of my manager’s manager doing this very thing, and he was doing it wrong!

How … exactly … can a person completely fail at sucking up, you ask?

Let me attempt to explain.

So, normally on Wednesday’s we have a team meeting and talk about purchases that may have a higher priority than say…buying someone in the herd a new diamond encrusted cell phone cover; but this week has been a bit different because we are inundated with new requests from the pathetically annoying who are trying to get purchases through before the fiscal year comes to a close.

Without saying more than necessary, I’ll just tell you that it’s a rather daunting time of year for those of us in purchasing and finance. And unless you actually spend time in the position, you have no idea how exhausting bovine can be when they can’t get their stuff.

It really is pathetic.

But more on that some other time…so anyway, we normally have our team meeting on Wednesday’s but my direct manager decided to move it up a day and so we met this afternoon.

Just as we were finishing up discussing some topics of great importance, in walks my manager’s manager. Let’s call him, “Schrute”. The reason: because he’s the typical Dwight Schrute suck up.

When he speaks, it’s rife with the smell of putrefaction. For those of you not smart enough to look that word up on Google, it means the process of decay or rotting in a body or other organic matter.

Sadly, he thinks he’s being clever or smart or pulling one over on those of us who actually see through his nonsense, and today was no different.

But before I get too far ahead of myself let me fill you in on a little minor backstory that happened earlier in the day.

Earlier in the day the CIO walks into my office and asks me about a purchase that was well over $25K. Before these purchases can be approved there is a minimum of three quotes/bids that need to be made from vendors. I submitted the quotes/bids and added them to the form where I requested the funds be approved for purchasing said items.

The CIO…who’s pretty high up in the company…asked me about the order and after detailing out everything I did verbally and then in email form for paper trail reasons, the CIO stated that he would approve it as soon as he got back to his desk. He also stated that since it was end of fiscal year, if there were any other orders that needed to be pushed through quickly, he would be happy to approve them so we didn’t end up sitting on things that needed to be paid for out of this fiscal year’s budget. Which was pretty swell of the guy, since he didn’t have to say that, but our CIO is actually a pretty great guy with a really great sense of humor. In other words, he’s about as laid back as you can get and a really awesome guy to work for.

Let’s skip ahead to our team meeting…

As we were finishing up the meeting, “Schrute” (a.k.a. :The Butt-Kisser”) walks into the conference room and says… “Hey. Ummm….sooooo….yeeeaaahhhh….that large order…?”

It was at this point that my teammates and I just looked at one another and shrugged because none of us knew what the hell he was talking about.

We have “large orders” about twice a day, so he really needed to be more specific. Then, noticing that we didn’t have a clue about what he was talking about, “Schrute” blurts out…“You know..those signature pads!?”

Right then my manager chimes in and asks if there was a problem to which “Schrute” replied, “Well…I was talking with the CIO and he wanted me to get some clarification about why we needed so many of them. I mean, he just wants me to be safe here…and not make mistakes like what we did a few weeks…uh…months ago when we ordered something…a-a-and…umm…well, we’re just a little gun shy right now.”

As I glanced at each of my teammates, this was the look on their faces:

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Okay…

Many of you might be thinking that the CIO might have gone to “Schrute” and asked him to get some clarification on this purchase, but remember, the CIO had earlier walked into my office and talked with me directly about it. Also, the CIO and I go way back. I’ve known this guy for over seven years!! SEVEN YEARS!!! and I’ve never known him to use his underlings to check up on other underlings. If the CIO has a concern, he goes to the source, so obviously I knew that “Schrute” was just trying to be . . . well . . . a Schrute.

My manager did his best to let “Schrute” know that we took care of it, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. For some reason “Schrute” just didn’t want to hear anything other than what he wanted to hear, and I’m still trying to figure out what that was.

And if you’re wondering…by the time we all got back to our desks, the CIO had approved the purchase.

lol. yeah, but there’s no one to suck up too. The CIO is laid back and easy to talk with..and now that I think about it, all the managers are that way, except “Schrute”. LOL…he’s the only one trying to suck up and he’s failing miserably. 😀

LOL. suckuppery! I like it! Yes…very frustrating indeed. And believe it or not, my manager even attempted to tell him that HE had talked with the CIO as well, but “Schrute” didn’t hear a word of what he said. It was a very pathetic…and very sad… meeting.